Public relations consultant and one-time candidate for the N.C. House Greer Beaty has signed on as communications director at the Department of Transportation.

Beaty joined the staff on Tuesday, leaving French West Vaughan public relations. She previously worked in various public relations roles for the Department of Commerce and the Smart Start program. In 2006 she ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic challenger to Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Cary Republican.

Beaty, 43, is a native of Rocky Mount and an East Carolina University pirate. She will earn $71,000-a-year.

* WUNC reporter Laura Leslie defends N&O ombudsman taking job at state agency, arguing that he's an "excellent communicator" in a tough industry.

* Schools Superintendent June Atkinson tells Fayetteville Observer she has no plans to sue the state over her job description.

* Conservative activist Francis De Luca argues that Rev. William Barber of the state chapter of the NAACP should have to register as a lobbyist.

* The president of the state Bankers Association is pushing to rename Raleigh-Durham International Airport after the Wright Brothers.

Gov. Beverly Perdue today defended her hiring of two high-level executives during a hiring freeze across state government.

She said she hired Dempsey Benton, the former secretary of Health and Human Services, to oversee the $6.1 billion stimulus package because her budget office is tied up with trying to fix the shortfall. Benton, who started work Tuesday, will be paid $98,500 pear year.

"I needed a focused, direct, goal leader to manage this stimulus money,” Perdue told reporters after speaking to an AFL-CIO meeting.

She also defended the hiring of Ted Vaden, the public editor for The News & Observer, as the deputy secretary of the state Department of Transportation.

Perdue said Vaden’s communications background could help DOT in getting projects under way.

“I’m hoping Ted has the time, while he is finishing up his responsibilites now, to begin to work on how we can be sure that communities across the state are aware.” Vaden will be paid $117,403 annually. He will start at DOT part-time on March 2.

* U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler could face trouble in a Senate primary over his vote on the stimulus and his views on abortion, some say.

* Gov. Beverly Perdue says the final stimulus package leaves the state about $150 million short of covering its $2 billion shortfall.

* Independent Weekly's Fiona Morgan wonders what it says when an ombudsman takes a job with "one of the most egregiously mismanaged and obfuscating agencies."

* Democratic firm Public Policy Polling finds 65 percent of those surveyed want to keep the schools superintendent an elected post.

* N&O public editor Ted Vaden has been appointed deputy secretary of communications at the N.C. Department of Transportation.

* U.S. Sen. Richard Burr could put a hold on Fourth Circuit vacancy unless longstanding Senate "blue slip" tradition is shuttered.

* A proposed state House bill would allow mopeds and scooters to go 50 miles per hour, rather than the current 30 mph speed limit.

* How N.C.'s presidents fared in new C-SPAN poll of historians: James K. Polk, 12th; Andrew Jackson, 13th; and Andrew Johnson, 41st out of 42.